WeAreDevelopers Dev Digest

Issue 149 - Hangover, day three…

WeAreDevelopers World Congress 9-11/7/25 - get 15% off using code devdigest

Hello fellow developer, as we slowly get started to face the new year, there's all kind of predictions for 2025 to look at and the Pantone Colour of the year being Mocha Mousse makes you wonder if it will be good or bad brown. Cloudflare analysed the internet traffic over the holidays and found a great decline in traffic. The Wordpress Holiday Break announcement sounded grand, but could mean possible shutdown in terms of allowing new plugins and themes.

If you need to binge something to start the year, we went to Halfstack in London and recorded all the talks for you! Check out all the videos of Halfstack London 2024!

What's happening in AI

• Things we learned about LLMs in 2024
• ChatGPT search vs. Google: A deep dive analysis of 62 queries
• The rise of the AI crawler - like 2001, when Google didn't read JavaScript
• Cursor vs GitHub Copilot and In-Depth Practice with Cursor
• AI Tools make me more productive, but i feel like i’m loosing my skills

Security and Privacy

• Volkswagen leaked car movement data of 800k users (German News, source)
• 2024 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses
• AI explains how to build a "B0mB" and narrative jailbreaking.
• The 8 worst technology failures of 2024.
• I’m Lovin’ It: Exploiting McDonald’s APIs to hijack orders for a penny.

Software Development

• Advent of Code solve times shortened drastically due to AI assistants.
• Build your own site speed testing tool with Puppeteer.
• The Little Triangle in the Tooltip.
• Optimizing Ruby’s JSON.
• Publishing a simple JavaScript package to npm with GitHub Actions.

Tips, Tricks and Tools

If you go to your terminal and run npx firew0rks you get fireworks that even your dog can approve of. Done by Addy Osmani and you can alter the animation or also show a fireplace. Fireworks source on GitHub.

• Findmy.py - Python library to query Apple’s FindMy network.
• Base UI - components for building accessible apps and design systems.
• Atuin -  Sync, search and backup shell history.
• HTML De-crapulator - clean up messy, generated HTML.
• Ergo - IRC server, so you don't get kicked for using MS Comic Chat.

Procrastination corner and Wonderful Weird Web

• A group of teens keep a game alive Disney discarded in 2013
• A Raycaster in bash - because, why not?
• Cashing in on GIF by charging royalties - pronunciation is not the issue.

• Google laid off 10% of management - why not earlier and save devs?
• Re-imagining Technical Interviews: Valuing Experience Over Exam Skills
• Keeping a CHANGELOG at Work
• Back to office resistance is about autonomy, not location

Companies to check:

• Software Developer Backend at nexMart
• System Engineer Storage/SAN at REWE Österreich
• Lead Mobile App Developer at Hubert Burda Media
• UX Designer (hybrid) at The Pampered Chef
• Senior TYPO3 Developer hybrid at Lingner Consulting

Expert Systems 

Siedle

Projektron

Raiffeisen Bank

Bundes Digital Service

More jobs here: Remote positions - Germany - Austria